This page includes a non-exhaustive list of prior coverage of Open Borders: The Case in the press and other notable outlets. All are welcome to contact us for media, press or other inquiries.
Links to the site as a whole
Coverage of launch (March 16, 2012)
The closest available site snapshot is for March 18, 2012.
| Link | Author, publisher, and date | More information |
|---|---|---|
| Open Borders: The Website | Bryan Caplan on EconLog (March 16, 2012) | This was the first official announcement of the site launch. Caplan wrote: “The idea is to bring together the best philosophical and economic arguments for free migration, including a few by yours truly. (I’m honored to be quoted on the masthead). This is a perfect website for would-be debaters to hone their thinking on the most important issue of our time.” |
| arguments for open borders | Fabio Rojas on orgtheory.net (March 18, 2012) | Rojas wrote: “There is a new web site, Open Borders, that collects arguments for the view that people should freely move across borders in most cases. It just got started, but it has both empirical and philosophical arguments, as well as arguments from different political perspectives. One stop shopping for people who want to hear, or disagree with, the argument that freedom of movement is a basic human right.” |
| オープン・ボーダーズ (in Japanese: translates to Open Borders) | March 24, 2012 | In Japanese, translation not of sufficiently high quality to include. But basically, the author says that the moral arguments appeal the most to him/her, but the site has a variety of arguments. |
Substantive coverage of the site content (post-launch)
Abrir las fronteras acabaría con la pobreza, afirma grupo de economistas (in Spanish)María Paz Salas for El Definido (May 9, 2013)Reviews the site content, providing a summary of the arguments for and against.
| Link | Author, publisher, and date | More information |
|---|---|---|
| New Open Borders Website | Expected Optimism (April 6, 2012 — closest site snapshot) | Written about three weeks after the launch of the site, the blog post included the author’s impressions of how the Open Borders site looked at the time. Many of the specific criticisms and feedback may not be applicable to the site as it stands now. |
| If People Could Immigrate Anywhere, Would Poverty Be Eliminated? Some economists are pushing for “open borders” | Shaun Raviv for The Atlantic (April 26, 2013 — closest site snapshot). | A close look at the case for open borders and the people who have argued in favor of free migration, from a largely sympathetic perspective. Read the whole thing. |
| Zorgen open grenzen voor einde aan de armoede (in Dutch) | on 360 Het Beste uit de Internationale Pers (April 29th, 2013) | |
| Open Borders, el movimiento que abroga por la migración libre (in Spanish) | David Moreno on Vertigo Politico (May 9th, 2013) | Reviews the site contents and the referenced work of Michael Clemens and Lant Pritchett |
| Why Not Just Open the Borders? | Joseph Mackin on 2paragraphs (May 14, 2013) | Relevant quote: “But a growing segment of economists believe there are good reasons to simply open the borders with few restrictions. And by good they mean it’s a move that has both moral and practical value. Mathematician Vipul Naik, influential impresario of the open borders movement online, believes widespread adoption of the policy among the world’s nation states would, as economist Bryan Caplan states, “double the world’s GDP.”” |
| What would happen if we opened all the world’s manmade borders? (Question 35) | Vilna Treitler at Difference and Indifference (October 16, 2013) | Relevant quote: “OpenBorders.com is an organization of advocates who support ceasing to carve up the planet and treat those who emerge from the wrong wombs on the wrong patches of dirt as if they do not belong on our patch. Their website is so smart! They have both pro-open and anti-open borders literature so you can hear both sides of the argument. The bloggers also provide reasoned refutations to the concerns of those who would worry about the end of the world as we know it if we shared the planet with other living beings instead of hoarding the earth and its resources to ourselves, and lived as if humans are each equally entitled to roam the planet as they may.” |
| The case for open borders | Dylan Matthews interviewing Bryan Caplan for Vox.com, September 13, 2014 | Although the interview is focused on Caplan’s formulation of the case, it is broadly consistent with the structure of the case made on the site. Matthews mentions the website twice, and links to it elsewhere in the article. Mentions: “But in recent years, a small but devoted group of advocates have succeeded in turning open borders from a dirty word to a real movement with strong arguments backing it up. The team at OpenBorders.info — Vipul Naik, John Lee, Nathan Smith, Paul Crider — deserves a lot of credit here, as Shaun Raviv wrote in an excellent profile of the group in the Atlantic.” Concluding sentence: “Also be sure to read Caplan’s blog, as well as OpenBorders.info, for more on the issue.” |
Links with brief mentions of the site
- The Open Borders Movement by Alex Tabarrok on Marginal Revolution (May 7, 2013).
- La alternitiva a la democracia by Albert Esplugas Boter (May 17, 2013).
- Labor Day and Open Borders by Alex Tabarrok on Marginal Revolution (September 2, 2013).
Forum discussions and comments linking to the site
- Quora answer to “What are some good arguments for open borders?” (disclosure: the answer was written by Vipul Naik, the founder and, at the time of writing the answer, the main contributor, to the Open Borders website).
- Comment on I’m a Citizen of the Internet, Where Do I Get My Passport? on The Next Web
- Reddit threads: UKBA ban on a university accepting non-EU students leaves nearly 3,000 students facing deportation unless they can find another place to study within 60 days, Cypriot police charter plane to deport 50, Let’s have a serious discussion related to illegal immigration, and others.
Links to individual pages and blog posts on the site
Links that quote excerpts from and/or address substantively the statements made in those pages
Brief mentions or links without substantive discussion
Reddit threads
- Reddit thread (libertarianism subreddit) on Bryan Caplan’s guest post My Path to Open Borders.
- Reddit thread (Christianity subreddit) on Nathan Smith’s blog post The Old Testament on Immigration.
- Reddit thread (libertarianism subreddit) on John Lee’s blog post Whoever he is, the next US President will be wrong on immigration.
- Reddit thread (libertarianism subreddit) on Vipul Naik’s blog post Is blankey denial of the right to migrate based on criminal history unjust? (December 27, 2012).
- Reddit thread (economy subreddit) on Nathan Smith’s blog post “Only high IQ immigrants” fails to understand comparative advantage.
- Reddit thread (Decline To State subreddit) on John Lee’s blog post Immigration, a worse crime than child sex exploitation.
- Want a Global Economic Boom? Open The Borders (Reddit thread) where one of the comments links to the suppression of wages of natives page.